Sub-micrometer size structure fabrication using a conductive polymer

Abstract

Stereolithography that uses a femtosecond laser was employed as a method for multiphoton-sensitized polymerization. We studied the stereolithography method, which produces duplicate solid shapes corresponding to the trajectory of the laser focus point and can be used to build a three-dimensional (3D) structure using a conductive polymer. To achieve this, we first considered a suitable polymerization condition for line stereolithography. However, this introduced a problem of irregular polymerization. To overcome this, we constructed a support in the polymerized part using a protein material. This method can stabilize polymerization, but it is not suited for building 3D shapes. Therefore, we considered whether heat accumulation causes the irregular polymerization; consequently, the reduction method of the repetition rate of the femtosecond laser was used to reduce the heating process. This method enabled stabilization and building of a 3D shape using photo-polymerization of a conductive polymer.